Ear pins

A few weeks ago the ladies over at JustCraftyEnough.com had a green challenge for the IronCraft challenge.

I took this opportunity to make some ear pins after having seen some on pinterest.  They were actually quite quick to make.

I took two bead pins with flat heads, threaded my beads on and then bent them.

So you put them on like regular earrings and then turn them so the wire clips them against your ear to hold them in place.

Maybe some day, I'll be up to making some like these.

WFMW: Weekly Bible Verse

As part of my goals for the new year, I'm doing something each week to help bring my kids closer to God.  This week, we started a weekly Bible verse for them to memorize.  We've had them in the past, that they've brought home from church, but it often was just added to the stack of papers on the table.

So, I've decided to make it more visible for us by using a dry erase marker and writing on our sliding glass door. (Our blinds are in between the glass).

Is it the perfect solution? Not really, there's a lot of glare during dinner when we're reading it because of the light) but it's working for us until I find something better.  It is right next to the kitchen table where we can all see it though. The girls have almost memorized this verse and my husband has picked out next week's verse.

Do you display a weekly verse for your family? How do you do it?

For more great ideas, check out the Works for Me Wednesday link up at We are THAT Family.

To follow my new years' goals check out Five for the New Year.

New Blog!

I started a new blog a few weeks ago.  Come check it out.
Five For the New Year.

I'll still blog here too, this just provides a little separation between my new years resolutions/goals and everything else.

IC 2013 Challenge 2: Orange basket

This "week" the challenge was the color orange.  And for me, that truly is a challenge since, it's no where near my top favorite color.  But, I did happen to have some orange fabric in my stash and I also had some more organizing to do.

In our kitchen, there's a small counter next to the refrigerator that is for the phone.  But our phone mounts on the wall, so we use it to keep the girls brushes, etc right now since we still help with their hair some and usually do it right after breakfast.  The problem is it is always looking cluttered.

I took a box that I had, covered it in white fabric (I just hot glue it to the outside of the box) and then I sewed a liner for it out of the orange floral fabric I had.  Then, I put all the tall bottles and the hair brushes in the box.  Now, there is actually counter visible and we're not constantly knocking stuff off.

For more great Orange projects, check out the IronCraft Flickr pool.

IC1: Bean Bag Storage

Stuffed Animals, they're EVERYWHERE! They're in pretty much every room of our house (except the bathrooms, but don't think that my daughters haven't tried to change that!).  The problem is most of them have a story or some other sort of emotional attachment.  For example this guy:

His name is Bear Bear. For a while, he went everywhere with my oldest.  She gave him the name Bear Bear on a trip to the doctors office when she was about 2.

Then, there are the ones that my husband has won for them from those claw machines you see in some restaurants, the ones they got on vacation, a gift from Grandma, etc.  We've got a lot!

I don't want to get rid of them, but I would like to store them in a better way.  They've outgrown the boxes/bins that we're using currently. And it looks a bit cluttered.

Then, I saw this pattern for a bean bag chair and remembered somewhere seeing a "bean" bag chair that was "stuffed" with stuffed animals.  It seemed like a great solution and I have a lot of fabric already (plus it only takes 3 yards if you don't line it, which I didn't).  So when the first Iron Craft Challenge for 2013 was Cotton, I decided to give it a try!

I also used a zipper instead of velcro to keep it closed.  

Check out other great cotton projects in the IronCraft Flickr group.

This is definitely working for us.  For more great tips check out the Works for Me Wednesday post at WeAreThatFamily.com.

IC 20: Homemade Pop Tarts - a test

I love pinterest.  There are so many great ideas on there!  Even before pinterest though, I'd seen homemade poptart recipes and thought about trying to make them with more whole wheat flour.  Then this recipe popped up on pinterest.  As with most of my pins, it aged a bit on my pinboard, but I did get to it!

Part of my desire here is to cut back on the sugar that my kids eat the other is to avoid so much processed food and dyes.  But, I wanted to test out how open they were to me making pop tarts instead of the store bought ones.  Baby steps, right?

So, I started with the dough in the recipe above and made it exactly how it says in the recipe.  I split it in half and used half for something else (which didn't work so well), but I think you could get at least 6 pop tarts out of the dough.  The first in my baby steps was to replace the filling, I just couldn't bring myself to use jelly for the filling, so I made some unsweetened strawberry applesauce by cooking a chopped apple and a handful of strawberries until they were soft then, I ran them through the food processor (I'm really missing my immersion blender, it would've made that easier!).  Then, I used that for the filling. I didn't add any sugar. I forgot to taste it until I had already filled a few of the pop tarts.  It really could've used some sugar, it was pretty tart!

After I filled the pop tarts with the applesauce, I put the top on, crimped them around the edges with a fork and poked the top with the fork too.  In retrospect, just one fork poke wasn't enough because the tops cracked.

 

However that's ok because as I said, I'm taking baby steps here, I'm pretty sure that if I were to give these to the kids they'd reject them flat out since there's no frosting.  In fact, I bought unfrosted pop tarts once and they rejected those.  So I had a little bit of frosting left over from some cookies I made a while back that I put on the top and then added sprinkles (because everything is better with sprinkles!). 

 



I layered the frosting on a bit thicker than I really wanted to, in part because the frosting was too thick and in part because of those cracks.

The result? The girls each ate a whole one and said that they liked them.  Which for my youngest is an improvement over a lot of the store bought ones. My oldest asked that next time I use just strawberries for the filling. I suspect she's reacting to the tartness of it and her thoughts about not liking applesauce.  Next time I might increase the strawberries, but I don't think I'll eliminate the apples completely.  I would never put them in the toaster (actually mine puffed up so much they wouldn't fit anyway), but they could be heated in the microwave if you want.  I had one at room temp and thought it was pretty good. Not really a pop tart but still really yummy.

I made these as part of Iron Craft Challenge 20 (Edible Crafts) at Just Crafty Enough.

WFMW - saving squash and pumpkin

It's that time of year! Pumpkins and squash are on sale and available at most farmers markets.  I use pumpkin in baked goods, pancakes and waffles for my kids to give them an extra bit of vitamins.  I ran into problems because rarely did the recipe need a whole can of pumpkin and I was wasting the rest.  So I started freezing the left overs. 

Then, my kids started going on field trips to the pumpkin patch where they got these little pie pumpkins that weren't big enough to carve.  So, I started cooking them and freezing them to use instead of the store bought canned pumpkin.  Now, I do it with squash too.

Here's what you need:
squash or pumpkin
food processor
muffin pan (silicone works best)
1/4 cup measuring cup
Knife
9x13 cake pan

Preheat your oven to 350 F.  Cut your pumpkin or squash open and take the seeds out (I usually cut mine in half from stem to bottom). Place the pumpkin in the cake pan cut side up and put some water in the bottom of the pan.  Bake it until it's soft.  I didn't time mine, but I think it was about an hour. It'll vary depending on the size of your pumpkin or squash.

Let it cool.  Peel off the skin, it should be soft enough that you don't really need a knife to do this.  Then cut it into chunks and put it in the food processor.  Puree until it's smooth.

After it's pureed, using your 1/4 cup measure, scoop 1/4 cup into each of the cups in your muffin pan.  Freeze it (I do it over night). Once it's frozen solid, pop them out and put them in freezer bags.

 

Now, the next time a recipe calls for pumpkin, I can just pop out what I need and thaw them quick in the microwave.  I've found that there's a little more moisture than what's in canned pumpkin. Some of it comes out when I microwave. I just use my judgement when I'm making something on whether I drain that off or add it in.  You could probably cook it down more after you've pureed it a bit to get some of the extra moisture out. 

 

Now is the time to get your pumpkin and squash.  In the pictures, I used butternut squash. I got a huge one for $1.  I'm getting more out of it than the boxes I'd buy at the store for more than that. And I can use it in place of pumpkin in recipes too. 

 

You could shred zucchini and freeze it this way also!

 

What do you like to freeze? Any recipe recommendations for pureed squash?

 

For more tips go check out We Are that Family's Works for Me Wednesday post.